Chapter 3
794 Words
"I explicitly warned you! Chelsea is nothing like those other women! Why do you have to cross my line?! You're just like your sister! Both of you are murderers!"
I pounded my fists against his arm as hard as I could, but it did absolutely nothing.
"Dylan, let me go..."
Chelsea's eyes immediately glistened with unshed tears, her voice wobbly and fragile. "Just because I get to stay by Mr. Larc's side... did you have to hurt me so badly? If this ugly scar stays on my back forever, how am I ever going to stay by your side, Dylan..."
Dylan released me in an instant.
He bent low, scooped Chelsea up into his arms in a bridal carry, his whole body thrumming with raw panic.
"It's okay, Chelsea. It's not ugly at all."
The low, tender way he soothed her held an intimate softness I'd never once been granted from him. "I'll call the best surgeon in the city right now. There won't be any scar, I promise you."
I stared at them, and the old scar on my own arm suddenly burned like fire, glaring at me under the lights.
It all came back to me: my first year as Mrs. Larc. I'd fumbled my way into the kitchen to make a fancy dinner, just to win a scrap of his affection.
When he walked in the door with a strange woman tucked in his arm, I froze in shock and my arm plunged straight into the hot oil. The searing pain blazed up my skin.
He'd only frowned and given me one cold, indifferent glance, then snapped that he hated the smell of cooking oil, and if I was going to cook, I should do it outside the house from then on.
Right. He never cared about me at all. And yet I'd let him walk all over my heart, again and again, never fighting back.
"Dylan." My voice came out rough and raspy, laced with the bitter mockery of utter despair.
"If you hate me this much, why did you ever make me your Mrs. Larc?"
His frame holding Chelsea went rigid for half a second, and a flicker of unreadable emotion, something almost like softening, flashed across his face before he could hide it.
"Ah! Dylan, my stomach hurts so bad." Chelsea immediately clamped both hands over her belly, her voice breaking with sobs. "Our baby... is it going to be okay? I'm so scared..."
Before she even finished speaking, I watched in horror as bright red blood came snaking down her calf.
"Get the car ready! Call the doctor now!"
Dylan's pupils blew wide with panic. That faint softening from just a second before vanished without a trace.
"Bring the madam to the hospital too! Strip her naked, cut out the smoothest, most tender piece of skin from her back, and graft it to Chelsea!"
I was stunned motionless, as if lightning had just blasted straight through my chest. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.
"Dylan! I am your wife! Have you lost your mind?!"
He held Chelsea tighter against his chest, and the look he gave me was colder than a block of ice.
"If you ever want to get your sister's ashes back, you'll get in that car without a fight."
That one single sentence drained every last bit of fight right out of me.
Rough hands grabbed and dragged me forward, shoving me hard into the ice-cold pre-op room thud
The door slammed shut behind me with a heavy thud.
No doctors or nurses showed up. Instead, a handful of unfamiliar, unknown bodyguards stood waiting for me inside.
I fought and thrashed with every bit of strength I had, but they snatched my arms easily and slammed me down onto the frigid operating table.
"Get away from me! What do you think you're doing? Don't touch me!"
One of the guards pulled out his phone and pointed it straight at me, a sick, leering grin stretched across his face.
"Chelsea gave us orders. She told us to take real good care of you."
Desperate, I kicked and flailed as hard as I could, raking my nails across his face and leaving several bright bloody scratches.
"Well I'll be damned. Who knew the CEO's wife was such a stuck-up, uptight prude?"
"Your own husband won't even touch you, and you're still over here acting all high and mighty?"
Bursts of crude, loud laughter erupted from all the men.
The rip of tearing fabric mixed with the pulsing red recording dot from the phone, a burning glare that seared my eyes too bright to open.
"Relax! If we get a clear shot, we can sell clips of you to the dark web for a pretty penny."
- Writer
